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Why we have a housing crisis in Hawaii
It’s as true for housing as it is for designer jeans: When supply can’t keep up with demand, prices go up and people get angry. The big difference, of course, is that a shortage of denim doesn’t generally create a crisis. A shortage of housing does. No one contests...
What Honolulu can learn from Houston about housing
Sometimes less is more. In Houston, the largest city in Texas by population, less zoning has resulted in more housing, helping it enjoy a significantly higher standard of living than Honolulu, as measured by the purchasing power of real wages. Find out more about...
Land-use lessons from Houston
Hawaii isn’t the only place experiencing a lack of housing. That’s an affliction we share with many metropolitan areas across the nation, such as San Francisco and New York City. Hawaii politicians have explored a variety of possible solutions to the problem, such...
People are the solution, not the problem
After the great success of the “Avengers” movies, the internet was full of people explaining that Thanos, the villain of the series, had a point. For those of you who have managed to escape the omnipresence of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thanos was a powerful alien...
‘Affordable in perpetuity’ chokes Maui housing supply
This commentary was originally published Sept. 10, 2019, in The Maui News. Maui County residents have long suffered from a lack of affordable housing, but county officials have continually denied permits to home developers who won’t promise that the units they build...